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POLITICAL COLUMN

Promise them anything, but give them death

'A bullet in the head' is what Osama bin Laden deserved, one candidate said Monday. | AP Photo

There was some applause, but the crowd didn’t get into real cheering until death raised its zany head.

The candidates were asked about launching an attack into Pakistan, as we did with the killing of Osama bin Laden, and Newt Gingrich, a historian (as he never tires of reminding people), brought up America’s seventh president, Andrew Jackson.

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This excited the members of the audience so much, I thought they might burst out of the debate hall, charge down the coast and shell Fort Sumter again.

In the past months, Republican debate crowds have also cheered for the execution of 234 people in Texas under Gov. Perry (a number that afterward rose to 235, so don’t say Perry isn’t doing his job) and letting a person without health insurance die rather than treat him for free in an emergency room.

So the best thing a Republican candidate can do is promise them anything — as long as it involves somebody dying. Monday night, Ron Paul said: “Maybe we ought to consider a golden rule. Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want them to do to us.”

He was roundly booed.

The evening dragged on for more than 90 minutes, and the only real humor came when Romney complained about campaign finance laws, saying, “McCain-Feingold is a disaster.”

Maybe I’m the only one who laughed, but I found it hilarious that Romney had failed to mention that when he appeared with John McCain at event after event in New Hampshire recently after McCain endorsed him.

The press likes to pick winners and losers after these debates, but after this one I just felt relief. Relief that these guys won’t be debating again.

Readers' Comments (138)

The crowd at the Myrtle Beach debate was a disgrace. It was a revolting thing to watch, the audience booing the suggestion of treating sovereign nations as we would want to be treated. The ignorance, and arrogance of those people. We're not at war, we're not fighting against any army or nation. We're killing people who are killing us because we are killing them. The attacks of September 11, however heinous, do not justify a cycle of violence resulting in the additional deaths of 5,000 US service personnel, 160,000 Iraqis, untold Afghan's and Pakistanis. How many of those 160,000 were guilty? How many among those took up arms only after one of their family was collateral damage? This thing we are fighting is a hydra. Isn't it clean and convenient to call it "a war on terror," easy to be a "patriot" when the answer, you accept, is just to kill "them." When are we going to stop cutting off heads and recognize the root causes as the CIA and the FBI have reported: Our foreign policy.

Hey Simon, wasn't your Muzlim president the one that ordered the killing of Obama and a lot of other terrorists? The only difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats will never said outloud that they also kill our enemies. as always, they want to be "politically correct".

I'm an Independent that believe that YES, the enemy that want to kill us, should get a bullet in their head. It's the only appropiate thing to do.

I don't know, Roger. Isn't this reminding you of "The Wizard of Oz"? A house fell on Sara Palin when she was trying out for Dorothy. Ron Paul is following the Yellow Brick Road. Rick the Lion Santorum thinks he has found his courage and roars. Mitt the Strawman Gingrich thinks he has found his brain. And Tinman Mitt Romney McBain hasn't yet realized he doesn't have a heart. Look out for all those flying super pack monkeys!

It's true: there is an especially strong bloodlust among Republican voters. The United States is militarily the biggest, strongest guy on the world block and Republicans want US to play the role of bully to the hilt (before China takes over the role in the future). Humans tend to get angrier and more violent as their insecurity and fear increases. The Republican Washington under Bush/Cheney and Tom DeLay and Mitch McConnell increased American economic insecurity by squandering their Democrat inheritance of a surplus and then forcing huge deficit spending by giving the richest Americans huge tax breaks. Republicans then gave US greater physical insecurity by sleeping at the helm and allowing 9/11 on their watch. To take the focus and heat off themselves, Republicans then concocted and started a lie-based war against Iraq (also a great way to funnel even more trillions to the richest Americans via sweetheart, no-bid contracts). To top it off, Republicans gave US the Great Stock Market Crash of 2008, followed by the Great Recession and millions of lost jobs and homes and retirement savings. Then they go after Medicare and nearly unanimously vote on the Hill to repeal and replace it with puny vouchers to be used in the unregulated, shark-infested waters of the private market. Then they demonize President Obama and do everything they can to terrify Republican voters with fictional bogeymen like affordable healthcare ("socialism") and a sanely regulated Wall Street ("strangulating our job creators"). Of course Republican voters are terrified and insecure in the extreme and lustily wanting to kill someone. It's all part of the Republican game plan -- their big picture, if you will.

If we did not respond to Sept. 11th. - we would show weaknes and weaknes invites more death and terror. Sorry , the only way to deal with devil is strength and if destruction is the outcome so be it. We did not do anything to Taliban to have them cause this great deed on civilian people. I am a Veteran(so it with great deliberance ) I totally agree with our action. You reffered to 160000 civilians in Iraq - most of them were killed by opposing tribal factions( not American troops - so stick with facts please).

As far as facts go, being able to tell the difference between al-Qaeda and the Taliban is a good start...

The Republican Party is finally showing its' heart and soul and it resembles a dying stinking corpse I still have hope that the rest of America, those people who still have compassion and empathy left in their souls will be so turned off by the dying throes of the Tea Party that it will finally, once and forever, kill off what little remains of the Republican Party. The Party of Lincoln has changed it's name so often (remember the Whig Party?) that it is laughable. The Party of Jefferson has called themselves "Democrats", proudly for hundreds of years and we will still be standing hundreds of years from now. Democrats believe in diversity and change and embrace everyone. Republicans still long for the days when Ronald Reagan was alive and John Wayne was King of the Box Office. When everything was white as far as the eye could see. If Republicans had been around in the 1400's, they would have made sure that the printing press was smashed in little pieces.